Saturday, July 14, 2007

Jaws Movies

One time when I was a kid, my mom left me in the care of my dad for the night. Somehow he made the grossly erroneous decision that I was old enough to watch Jaws. I'm not even sure I'm old enough to handle it now, so his math was off by at least thirty years. Good call, Dad. Before that night I didn't even know "scary" was an option for movies. I thought movies were about magical lands and singing animals. Five minutes into that thing I knew I never wanted to swim, bathe, or even run through the sprinklers again.Luckily the Jaws sequels made sharks less scary by continuously increasing in absurdity. In Jaws II, the shark took down a helicopter. A little hard to swallow... both for me and for the shark. Jaws III featured a shark that was roughly the size of Florida. Hurry to Sea World, everyone... they finally got a Megalodon. In Jaws IV: The Revenge, a descendant of the original "Jaws" shark followed the Brody widow all the way to the Bahamas. This lady's husband died of a heart attack caused by his own intense fear of sharks, one of her sons was eaten by a shark, and her other son was studying in the Bahamas to become a marine biologist. Hey, Brodys... move inland! Coastal cities and islands aren't for people who've managed to offend multiple generations of great whites.One time my sister's high school class watched Jaws on a big screen while sitting on rafts and tubes in the darkened city pool. What a great idea! Maybe the mutant who planned that activity can arrange for next year's seniors to watch Shawshank in Shawshank. Come for the popcorn... stay for the violent prison beatings. I don't even like watching Jaws on my couch... no way I'm watching it in (or near) a pool. Sharks are cool... if you like nightmares. And thanks to that night my dad was my babysitter, I've had a lot of them.

32 comments:

Hilarious Shane! That's kinda like my parents letting us watch "Watcher in the Woods" when we were really little. Did you ever see that? DUDE...it gives me nightmares NOW. Crazy! I think just because it was a DISNEY movie, my parents picked up it up, put us in a room together to watch it and then went about doing whatever they did while we were close to wetting our pants, it was so scary. I honestly don't think my parents EVER watched it with us. Scary. As for JAWS, any time it's on TV, which is just about EVERY FREAKIN' DAY, Chas has it on. That, or Young Guns (which is ALSO on constantly). None of the JAWS movies ever seemed very scary to me because the shark is so seriously fake looking. But I can only imagine how scary it would be to a kid. My Kaden would be having nightmares forever. Anyway...sorry for the BOOK of a comment. Guess I'm kinda chatty tonight. LOL! Anyway...loved this entry. Definitely one of my faves!

"Watcher in the Woods" was the second terribly horrifying film I saw. After that one I became afraid of mirrors, streams, barns, Bette Davis, and several other things to go along with sharks, boats, and water. Thanks for bringing those flashbacks back into my life, Heather.

Haha, awesome! I love how you did the lights and shadows in this drawing. It has a nice underwater feel :) I have a friend...a 35-year-old friend...who refuses to go to the beach because he saw this movie as a child ;)

I can really relate with your fear of sharks. Almost every dream I have where I see water, be it from the ocean, river, lake, pool, or even a sink, it always ends up surrounding me and then great whites come and get me. I even had a dream once where I was at a restaurant and a great white dressed in a suit somehow fooled the waiter into thinking he was a normal costumer and allowed him to sit at the table next to me. Jaws has scarred my dreams permanently.

For someone whose terrified of sharks you seem to have overcome your fear of them enough to see the humor in their consumption of people. I respect that.

Like Alina, I love the size differances-- sends a chill through my bones. I think I'm going to have to try the 'watching Jaws while bobbing around in a pool'-- should be an unforgetable experience. Bit of a rush.

you make me laugh so hard! you are a complete entertainer from your visually stimulating illos to your hysterical spirit of commentation! i seriously want to hang out with you all the time! you are a HOOT! ;)

this must be another one of those undiscovered deep sea species that only have 10 teeth and no need for tedious dorsal fins. Hmmm... I wonder if he's friends with the narwalrus... he could borrow the mustache on tuesdays to conceal his identity from prey ;). Better add tuesdays to that growing 'fears list', Shane

I love the great story..funny how some people just aren't cut out for "scary" movies- I know Im not. I can still vividly recall the day I saw The Incredible Hulk for the first time..fear like I had never known..I don't even think I had ever cried that much or that loud before my babysitter tried to convince me it was a worthwhile show. I've never seen any of the Jaw's movies and thank you for the reminder why I haven't.

My son just turned three and he loves watching Jaws. He will grab his gun and shoot the shark at the end so it blows up then start running around saying; I got it. I got it. He also loves swimming allot. He will pretend he is the shark and then he will start saying daaaa naaa, daa naa, da na, da na, dana, dana, ree dedaleeeee with the biggest smile you ever saw, and then start to play eat you. I guess he is going to be the mutant kid that gets everyone to watch Jaws at night in the pool. I do have to say though I think this type of thing is genetic. His mother was caught at the age four yelling into a staticy T.V. yelling Carrie, Carrie. Her dad found her doing that and then her baby sitter found her actually watching Poltergeist at age four at 2:30 a.m. by her self. The baby sitter got scared and had her mom come over. I wonder if I should be scared for my life!!!!

Thanks for the comments, everybody. I rarely respond to any of them because I forget to and I'm lazy, but I always like reading them. People who comment on my blog are my favorite people... so thanks.

Poltergeist is another horrible film that I saw when I was much too young to see it. I was afraid of trees for a solid year or two... kitchen cupboards too. Man, that movies scared me. I would have been freaked out if I was the babysitter too.

Eric - from what you wrote, it sounds like Natalie sat on my blue lips. I was same height in high school that I am now, but I weighed over 100 pounds less. I was a skeleton, so it's no wonder that cold ocean water turned my lips blue. I was basically dead. Watching a Jaws marathon at a beach house wasn't too bright, but it was funny.

I should respond to each comment individually, but I have a job, and I need to do stuff for it. Back to that. Thanks again, people who say stuff on my blog!

I haven't a clue why, when I was in 3rd grade, my friend's mom thought it would be a good idea to open her basement up to a bunch of little kids to watch jaws. And she was not even around! Really, somone should have called DCFS! And no, I did not sleep after that either. Thart shak was much bigger than my bed, but somehow you are just so convinced at that age that everything scary lives under your bed or in the closet. I see that movie now in its edited TV version at times and it is still just so disturbing!

Great illo! Check out my blog, though....I posted a picture last week that I drew when I was a 4 year old girl, with a very similar composition!! You wouild probably enjoy it!

I love your illustration!! Once my freiend and I decided to hire all the jaws movies, watch them (we only ended up watch ing one) then go for a surf. It wasnt a good idea. The surf was great and we were too scared to stay out. Even bits of seaweed were scaring us.

after i saw jaws, up at summer camp, OUT IN THE MIDWEST, i was totally sure they were gonna be in the lake. and yeahhhh...jaws 3...not the 3d one with louis gossett, but that awwwful one where mom brody, in a menapausal place, thinks the mommy shark is stalking them, as a family. peee-uuuu!

I loved reading your post and all the comments about it! I remember watching those horrible movies Omen and something else (probably by Stephen King) about vampires when I was like 6 years old! I was terrified! Then I reached 8th grade and my mom wouldn't let me watch the nuclear bomb movie "The Day After" for a school assignment because I was always scared of movies. Why didn't she figure that out much earlier? Funny illo and post.

hey im tayla and im doing this thing about shark myths at school and mine is: are most people scared of sharks because of the movie jaws? and well i just wanna know if you are? and if i could Interview you and see if you realy are scared of sharks because of jaws?so if you get this plz tell me!!!♥ tayla

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I think my fear of sharks started with the Jaws movies... I'm not even sure I knew sharks existed before I saw that. So Jaws at least started my fear of sharks, but the more I've learned about them over the years, the more terrified I've become. I would call Jaws the springboard into shark-based fear... at least for me.